PARADISE VALLEY, Ariz.  Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig called it a “speed bump” rather than a roadblock, but the Padres’ planned ownership transition is at least temporarily on hold.

A transaction Padres Chairman John Moores had described as “100 percent complete,” pending confirmation by his peers, was abruptly dropped from the agenda of the quarterly owners' meeting here Thursday after a series of financial questions were asked but not answered.

Padres CEO Jeff Moorad described the issues as “technical,” and said “they have no material impact,” but the late-breaking snag so irritated Moores, according to a baseball source, that he withheld his vote on Selig’s two-year contract extension (which was approved by the other 29 owners).

Selig promised to address the outstanding issues, “expeditiously,” and characterized the delay as a reflection of due diligence instead of real concern.

“In order to make a recommendation to the 30 clubs, the ownership committee and the executive council unanimously have deferred their decision at this time to get more clarity and technical information,” Selig said. “And the announcement is exactly what it says. It’s exactly what it says. There’s no hidden agenda here or anything else. There were a lot of economic concerns.

“The most important thing that we do is bringing in new owners. And so we have really become very, very fastidious about the economics; whether people can make it. And I’m not suggesting there’s anything negative. There were just questions (that) we didn’t have time here to answer.”

Selig declined to specify what questions Moorad’s group must resolve, but he said concerns were first voiced by Jonathan Mariner, MLB’s chief financial officer, on Friday.

“I worked on it on the plane on the way out,” Selig said. “I had done that over and over. But I was really surprised; both groups really did their homework. There were ardent supporters of Jeff, and everything else, but there were questions (and owners) kept saying, ‘Well, we need answers for that.’ So I’ve already instructed our guys to meet with them and begin to develop answers and it will come back to us. I use the word ‘expeditiously’ cause I promised them that.”

Moores has said the final installment of the Moorad group’s gradual purchase of the franchise has been in escrow since December. Yet while an all-cash payment covering the remaining 51 percent of the franchise still owned by Moores and his partners would seem to attest to Moorad’s wherewithal, Selig said “there were a lot of issues and the fact is that (the payment) is only one part of this deal.

“There is a (a) debt requirement thing. These things are far more complicated than people understand.”

A baseball source indicated that some of the issues in need of addressing could relate to the commitment of Moorad’s partners and their willingness to fund future cash calls. Documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission shortly in 2009 showed that Moorad had raised $105 million of the purchase price of the Padres by enlisting 13 partners, that he had yet to sell an additional $55 million, and that he was seeking a minimum investment of $1,640,625.